Fertile Crescent 'will disappear this century'

IS THIS the final curtain for the Middle East's Fertile Crescent? With the region beset by drought and a slew of projected new dams in the pipeline, it is looking increasingly likely that the Mesopotamian cradle of civilisation will become a desert.

In ancient times the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers through Iraq were bountiful, sustaining civilisations such as Sumer and cities like Babylon. That stands in stark contrast to a detailed assessment of the region's future under climate change, published in 2007 by Japanese and Israeli meteorologists (Hydrological Research Letters, DOI: 10.3178/hrl.2.1). This suggested flow on the Euphrates could fall by 73 per cent, with the authors warning that the ongoing drought in the region was likely to become permanent.

"The ancient Fertile Crescent will disappear in this century," lead author Akio Kitoh of Japan's Meteorological Research Institute in Tsukuba told New Scientist. "The process ...

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